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Excerpt from Stewart Haulage Chapter

A-Maize-Ing!

 

Bulk maize, a commodity with which I had no experience, was hauled to various Waikato feed mills. Maize, straight off harvest, is interesting stuff to handle as it remains ‘fluid’ all the time, never settling. On occasion, I would also come in contact with the outgoing product of these mills in the form of maizemeal. Packed in 83kg bags (12 to the tonne), the meal was usually loaded by mechanical means but always unloaded manually, to be stacked undercover in a shed or barn. My body weight was only 68kg in those days; if a bag became ‘uncontrollable’ it was best to just let it go because to do otherwise was certain to end in pain or injury. When delivering bagged maizemeal, I noticed there was always an eerie stillness on arrival, brought about by a total lack of human or mechanical assistance no matter what the time of day. You were on your own!

 

On one occasion a few months after I started, Colin sent me, in No.4 Albion Reiver, to load maize being harvested at Bill White’s farm, directly over the road from our yard. Because of the fluidity of the load, it had been found wise to put lock bolts through the sideboard stanchions and both tailgate latches to guard against inadvertent release and subsequent loss of load. Colin gave me a hand to fit the 4ft (1.2m) high ‘bulk’ sides and tailgate for the job; while I was inserting the stanchion bolts Colin indicated he would do the tailgate (that’s my story, anyway). As driver, a.k.a. The Responsible Adult, I should have checked that it had been done; I didn't. It was an omission I was soon to regret.

 

Loading complete, I head off, Hamilton bound. Slowing to a crawl to negotiate the rather rough cattle grid at the main exit of the property, I feel the expected surge in the load. Proceeding out onto the roadway, I hook second gear and briefly check my mirrors. Doom! Behind me lies a trail of maize worthy of Hansel and Gretel. Without its lock bolts, the tailgate had escaped its latches, and the maize was flowing freely onto the bitumen roadway. I stop and, cursing profoundly and at length, secure the tailgate to quell the flow. Then, thinking I’m doing the right thing (and still swearing under my breath), I begin shovelling the lost product back onto the truck.

 

Ethel and Claude Collins were lifelong residents of the Tahuna area and, in my experience, a lovely couple. There wasn’t much going on around the district that Ethel didn’t know about. Both the Tahuna Mobil Service Station, which they owned, and their home opposite, were less than 50m from where I was shovelling and here was I, compromised, virtually outside their window. As you can see from the photo I had barely got started when Ethel appeared on ‘the scene of the grime’ with the Instamatic.

 

 

Having shovelled most of the spilled maize back onto the truck I went up to our yard to fit the missing tailgate lock bolts, report in, and face the music. On previous dealings with Bill White, I had found him a gruff, sombre individual, extremely economical with words. I had previously loaded a full truck and trailer of ewes from his property and the only words he uttered were “378 ewes going to Southdown”. When I finished loading I latched the back door and turned around, only to find Bill had disappeared.

 

With the maize debacle, however, he was considerably less restrained. When Colin went over the road to find him, still in the harvest paddock, Bill had a significant amount to say – delivered in Full Surround Sound and with an alarming spike in blood pressure. It transpired that the maize in question had been ‘Food Grade A1’ when loaded and thus 'worth a King’s Ransom’. However, in my enthusiasm for remedying the situation (and being ignorant of both the King’s preferences and the internal workings of maize mills), I had gathered up not only the spilled maize, but also a smattering of loose road metal and dirt. The whole load was now “Virtually Bloody Worthless!” according to its owner.

 

The conclusion of this unfortunate incident was the diversion of the load, now only good for cattle feed, to another mill in the backblocks near Te Awamutu. I have a vague idea that Stewart Haulage bought the load from White, at somewhere near its perceived value, on-selling it and taking the loss. As for me, I was Banned, In Perpetuity, from the White Farm. Ah, well. Being banished from the White Estate had no noticeable effect on my sleep patterns.

 

The Albion Reiver was a sturdy, plodding vehicle. Stewart’s example was powered by a Leyland 0.370 diesel at 110hp with a ‘flat’ torque curve that would seem to have been an industrial setting for powering generators, draglines, and such. It boasted a 6-speed Albion gearbox, 4-spring non-reactive suspension and low ratio Albion hub-reduction bogie drive axles. At a guess, overall final drive ratio was south of 8:1. It was slow and steady; with 20t GVW, third gear was a sufficient flat road starting gear. In top gear/overdrive at 2,000rpm, maximum speed was a mind blowing 37mph (60km/h). From new the truck had been fitted with a Ringfeder coupling and hydraulics for trailer work, which had never been used. An educated guess tells me the Reiver would have performed the same with a trailer at 34t GCW as it did without.

 

 

End of Stewart Haulage Excerpt